NOEL ELLIS' GOOGLE BLOG

THERE IS A HOLE IN MY POTHOLE There is a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza....., is an old English song. Liza keeps giving Henry solutions to mend his bucket so that he can fetch water. In the end the hole still remains and water is never fetched. With this song as the background, here goes my piece. A month into monsoon, condition of roads is pathetic. If you take a picture by a drone you may find earthlings walking on moon avoiding craters. The other day we saw a dumper with its driver’s cabin facing the sky, sunk in a road, as if India has found a new PDLV (Polar Dumper Launch Vehicle). Reality is that now there is a hole in every pot hole. This hole widens and deepens with every drop of rain. People are losing lives unfortunately. Politician is absconding, MC has washed its hands off & contractors are in hibernation. Sufferer is the common man. Trains wading through water, buses plying like hovercrafts, two wheelers like water scooters, cars like speed bo...

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL People tell me that I was born very fair. I don’t know what happened in between. My “ twacha ” got tanned too much while I played cricket all day and went on many fishing trips with Dad. We didn’t have anti-tan lotions or UV blocks with SPF varying with glare of the sun. We had pure “ Sarson ka tel”. In winters our skin used to go white, I would rather say flaky in some ways. The only way to cover it was to have well oiled legs. To save time, distance from the end of the shorts and start of the socks used to be oiled. The elbows and knees always remained problematic. No one bothered in the playfield as there was no one watching your legs. During our School Annual day celebrations we used to have this sound and light show. Boys used to line up in our house for makeup. Mom used to give them a lotion called Lacto Calamine which students used to rub on their faces for fairness followed by foundation. Then she used to dab them with face powder. All “Ka...